Illarion.org

Taken from this thread http://illarion.org/community/forums/vi ... 3&start=60 positive suggestions for tactics?

Olaf Tingvatn wrote:

Azuros wrote:Olaf, you do realize that the mages don't do those emotes by choice, right? They're automated emotes that happen whenever we cast a spell. You're right, it -does- spam up everything during big events, and I don't like them anyway. Also, how is a mage, which needs to be protected from open attacks, taking up "valuable space" by casting from behind the barricade?

yes i know they do not emote by choice by taking up valuable space behind the barricades i mean taking up space where the warriors with two handed weapons should stand, as i wrote and explained back there. not that we got to use the barricades for anything but cover.and mages 'are' capable of casting magic over peoples head if they were to stand two tiles behind the warriors, right? *shrugs* i think the GM's should have just taken over silently instead of every person in trollsbane going WAAAAAGH!..and whats that about orcs not supposed to be there? explain?

Just to add a tactical problem, mages are basically blind (perception-wise) not being able to see as far away as someone with high perception. Most of the time, I couldn't see the attacking mages (they must have better eye-sight then even my fighting char). A good alternative is for the two handed weapons to be at the barrels, the mage behind, and a fighter next to the mage? Can the top of the battlement/gate be used at all?

*quotes Hadrien* Discuss.

(a lot of basics can be discussed ig but just a general idea since we usually don't have 76 chars ig like the quest)

well, more then two mages casting at one time could become confusing with the auto emotes, but yes that is what i in general had in mind when it came to who was to stand at the front and such . im not sure if the battlements ontop of the gates are much use, even if the archer or mage was standing as close as possible the battlement "walls". placing the archers and mages at the flank guarded by two fighters or more is allso a solution that could work, and have the mages target mostly the enemy mages. If the enemy mages are shorter then the enemy fighters that could work out nicely. Allso the barricades right next to Elizas shop can serve as a good protection for mages and archers. But, from what i saw yesterday..noone is willing to hang back as reserves, everyone want a piece of the action and clusters together basicly jostling for positon. we should have the strongest fighters by the eastern barricades..or those towards Varshikar and the bridge leading towards the library. the weaker fighters defending the barricades between the workshop and the library. a maximum of two mages at each barricade to group heal and toss the occationale fire ball. But, getting any of those tactics to work ingame would take lots of cooperation from other players willing to stand around and RP while they wait for the stronger fighters to fall back or be defeated. and getting to "drill" any tactics In Game is not easy either since most of those online yesterday was there for the fighting and skillgaining and so was i..for the fighting mostly anyways..thats my suggestion for tactics.

I think the problem was that Olaf was in a corner of the barricade, ready to strike the enemy by that corner. The mages were at the front line of the barrels when warriors with long-reach weapons or archers should have been there. You could tell, the mages were eager to cast their spells. It was annoying.

Ordinarily Mages could cast over peoples heads at the second tile back and be just fine.

This fact is what got so many people clouded at the East Gate, the first time before the server crashed. The Mages would just eagerly cast Area effect spells at enemy and friends alike. It was a massacre!

Mages need to hold on those and just heal the warriors when in close combat like that.

When the warriors are behind the barricades, then the mages could cast those area spells at the enemy! Otherwise, they are as dangerous to our fighters as the enemy was!

It all comes down to discipline and training. Trollsbane had not planned on so many to participate in the battle, the leader wasn't there, and nobody (except the Orcs) knew what to do. It was obvious.

Not to blow my own horn, but the Orcs had a strategy and stuck to it. It worked. We held the central barricade and then later flanked the enemy via teleporter. We had trained together and learned from mistakes. We fight as a team and stuck together no matter the fireballs and demon (Distractions).

Trollsbane didn't.

I said before, if it wasn't for the server crashes, we would have lost that first battle. Everything was smiled up. The second and third reset, things went better, but still disorganized as hell.

I just hope we have time to get Trollsbane trained and working as a team before the second battle, or it'll be lost.(Taliss - Hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

Small things to know about your mages.

Spells have these things called ranges, which from my general understanding will effect how many tiles away they can cast from

From watching the battle, the only damaging aoe's hitting your side were from the NPC mages and not the PC mages. Though the did use mass healing.

Keep in mind that the mages themselves are going to want to be part of the battle, in fact they are you best weapon in most cases. I'm surprised more flames weren't used, but that was probably to avoid having allies walk through them and dying as they constantly retreated then advanced back and forth from the bridge.

Just because some random fighter shouts "heal" does not distinguish that particular character from the mob of people he or she is in. If you like to die more often then put your mages as far into the back as possible. Be sure then they probably won't heal you in time.

Mages are not endless healing batteries. Sometimes its easier for them to kill an enemy rather then wait for a fighter to go blow for blow with it and ask for healing in the process

Advice on using your mages:

Put them in a clear guarded place where they can see the battle without being thrown into a muddle with a bunch of fighters and archers. And spread out your battle so singling out targets for healing will be easier, thus the mages in question won't use as much AOE healing.

The easiest thing would be for:

Let m = number of mages and f = number of fighters.

f=2m+6

Then the fighters stand around the mages.

e.g. (Where M is a mage and F is a fighter)

If there aren't enough fighters per mage we can simply summon walls to fill the gaps, but this isn't ideal because you can't see through the wall.

You can also use the environment to your advantage
(R=River, B=Bridge)
This means you only need 2 fighters per 3 mages in such a situation. Or if all the enemies are on the other side of the river you just need one fighter on the bridge to take the blows.

This would be much easier for many reasons.

1. The fighters are overall taking less damage because they're not being attacked by several npcs at once.
2. The mages can safely avoid damage and not have to worry about running around and healing themselves and healing other people and taking out the enemies.
3. It's much easier to control your area spells when everyone is uniform rather than scattered around amidst the enemy.
4. You can simply area heal the tile you're on to heal everyone, rather than trying to find specific people.
5. We can summon flames around you so anyone who attacks you will be constantly dying.
6. People don't work with mages, and they don't understand what we have to do. When you ask for healing, we will most likely ctrl click you and then cast the spell. It's harder to control click you when you're running away. Sometimes you run out of our spell range. But the WORST OF ALL THINGS is when you get healed then keep running to the edge of our screen, but still on our screen. If we have a target ring on you and you run so far that it's extremely hard to untarget you, that's a death warrant for us. Try running away from the enemies, while trying to untarget someone on the edge of your screen because otherwise it's difficult to heal yourself. When we have you targeted, to heal ourself we'd need to cast the spell then click ourself. If you need to do 3 heal spells in succession quickly on yourself while being chased by NPCs, it's not ideal that you're locked onto some fighter who couldn't stand still.
But luckily, standing around the mage fixes this problem.

Another thing to help:
If you want healing, #i the mages before battle. We don't have time to look for "Someone(XXXXXXX)".
If mages tell you to move out of the way, move out of the way. Some of us have 3 con and no armour. We can take 2 or 3 hits from one NPC before we're dead. If a mage dies, if he resses at the cross he can't cast spells anymore for a long time, so that mage has been rendered completely useless for the whole battle. We only had a few mages last time, but we had plenty of fighters. Plus, the main damage fighters are taking is from the spells. Taking hits from fighter NPCs isn't that big a deal to you, and you can't really effectively run away from the mage NPCs due to their spell range.

Fighters tend to get in the way of mage strategies. Especially lots of fighters. Unless you're structured and working together we're being hindered by having you in the way. Having you in the way between us and the enemy is great (like there should be fighters standing on the bridge so we can stand behind them and cast without fear of being killed). Having you between the enemy and yourself = death for us.

If you think mages have overlooked any problems fighters have then feel free to lend us some advice on how to deal with you.

Why don't you just create a wall? I mean... what is the point for the fighter anyway? You want to block an area, the heck of it, block it with a wall and call it done.

to thin out the amount of fighters and mages at the barricades we could have fighters in reserve by the cross or river by the trollsbane workshop. and i still believe 'one' mage per barricade is 'more' then enough to group heal and the likes. something like this...

East barricades:
(A=Archer)
AA <--(Elizas shop barricades)

AA F FFFF F AA
M
Fighters plugging the holes in the barricades supported by archers.



River barricades:

FFF
AA M AA
v ^
v>>>>>^ <----- If the archer on the left side cannot hit the enemy they shift over to the right side if possible.

Two or three fighters plugging the hole on the bridge supported by mage and archers from behind, the archers should be able to hit their targets by standing close to the river.


Library/Workshop barricades:
A
A
F
M F <---just imagine them squished more together.
F
A
A

AA FFFFFF AA
M

this could be called a crossfire, the unit at the barricades between the library and workshop could have more archers and 'maybe' one more mage to increase the crossfire effect.

and then of course the reserves back by the river or cross. whaddaya think? theese formations/tactics could be modified and add more fighters and archers, but you know just the rough idea of how i think things would work the best. and possibly add more mages since they too want to be a part of the fun..but then again, too many mages too many auto emotes when they throw their magic around.


EDIT:ugh..the mages are behind the fighters and the archers spaced more to the side of the fighters..looked good untill i posted it..

Who cares about the enthralling RP when you're killing a big load of NPCs? Why do the auto emotes even matter? The only things that really matter in the text box are "Heal", "Help" and "Move" and you can still clearly see them. If you think they're clogging up the screen, well just look through them, they're translucent for a reason. You can still ctrl click things behind text. Plus you're saying people would be behind a barricade.

Btw use the code function to do plans.

And also, you think that we have enough archers or they're actually useful for anything? All you need is to make sure that mages don't take any hits and the fighters don't move around too much or too far from the mages and you're sorted.

tried the code thing..messed it up completely..but you sorta get the rough idea i hope. maybe we dont have enough archers, then just replace the archers with mages, that should please the mage characters and no text and emotes are translucent, or however that is spelled.not on my screen at least..

It also may help if non-fighters stand watch at other entrances in case of a sneak attack, then can shout and warn. IMO the dwarves did very good with the tavern having surrounded me once when I stepped through a spare portal, perhaps at least two guards in every building?

Olaf Tingvatn wrote:and no text and emotes are translucent, or however that is spelled.not on my screen at least..

Translucent for me... perhaps it depends on your graphics settings?